Dying

            The afterlife does not exist. When we say rest in peace, we, as life-filled humans, mean it. The black ether, void, what-have-you, welcomes us in as we are descending. Though we are still alive as something we cannot understand while we are breathing in the bodies we inhabited, which have stopped doing so, we now understand the darkness that is waiting and a smile creases our bloodless, pale lips. Our eyes are closed by a family member with their sad, little fingers—if they found us in a room after our suicide—or our eyes closed by our own power on an unfamiliar and despondent hospital bed because we were so tired from all the living we had to endure.

            When we hear, “Rest in peace,” or see it on our own gravestones as an abbreviation—our heads tilting back to see what message our loved ones chose for us through the coffin that is invisible—we know it will be thus. We know that finally all our work will be paid off.

            We laugh at the pre-mortem thoughts we had of meeting the creator we thought existed. Finally, we realize how ridiculous it was to think that our maker would want all of us—after all the red wars and random fights with ex-girlfriends or boyfriends—in the heaven it has created up there with it. We know that we are not ones to be saved by some savior we have created. Whether or not it exists is no longer a concern. We feel the peace bouncing off vocal cords and landing somewhere inside of us.

            That first fistful of clumped soil is tossed onto our faces and we accept that it is the closure and answer we have been looking for during our entire existences. We smile, if only to ourselves, cross our arms over our chests and feel the emptiness coming for us as a pastor we never honestly liked recites some Bible verse we knew when we were children who would believe in anything. His voice fades as we escape.